Design Fatigue

We’re all suffering from undiagnosed redesign fatigue.

Every product. Every logo. Every digital experience.

Change. Change. Change.

And each one is like biting into a warm chocolate chip cookie and realizing– too late– that they’re raisins.

I love(!) raisins and I’d still spit. Just to make a point.

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Suggestion #1: A global moratorium on change— a vacation from framing every product “innovation”... every new feature, every client ask… every long stretch of experiential consistency… as a good business case for inflicting change on existing users.

Seriously. Am I the only one who would pick fewer features (and the same experience) over “better” features with a new experience?

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And it’s not just products.

“Better” is why Johnson and Johnson is changing their 136-year-old logo. Their reason? To signal their shift into a “pure play health care company.” And I quote: “While the logo was iconic, it was starting to show signs of age in a world full of texting and emojis.”

Hmmm. What’s the emoji for “better”? A raisin?

What’s the emoji for how changing a font leads to happier clients?

That’s got to be the magic wand.

So…. suggestion #2: You don’t need to keep changing your visual assets. You don’t need to pick a color that better represents your values. Or a font that better represents your new market focus. Unless… all your clients are brand consultants. Give it a break.

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And finally… I don’t know anyone who designs actual, edible cookies for a living. I wish I did.

But… all the digital experience designers I’ve ever known rationalize their changes as benefiting their clients– making their product more intuitive.

Funny thing intuition. It’s actually shaped by what we’ve experienced previously– the patterns of our past– rooted in the experiences we’ve had up until that new experience.

In other words, product designers are changing the experiences that defined our intuition… to… better accommodate our intuition.

[World. Spinning.]

Suggestion #3: You don’t need to keep adding. And… I’m not going to say the obvious opposite (i.e., “you need to keep subtracting”)... because… I’m not Master Oogway.

Adding and subtracting are both change.

Just… leave it alone.

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Final final:

If you’re driving product change, the simplest/best measure of success is… drumroll please… proof of adoption… at scale. To that end, suggestion #4:

Make sure that the next digital redesign you roll out has a prominently displayed “switch back” button… and measure how “intuitive” your change really was.

In my experience, 95% of your clients will flip that switch back to the old experience. Not because they prefer their horses over your automobile but because psychologically, they find your old mess a comfort.

That’s really what’s at risk when people inflict change on users: their comfort. Their sense of psychological safety.

That familiar taste of a chocolate chip.